Registry entry
Tanzania — BRELA Form 14a, Application for Registration of a Company
The Business Registrations and Licensing Agency's (BRELA) Form 14a, 'Application for Registration of a Company', filed pursuant to section 14(2) of the Companies Act, Cap. 212, via BRELA's Online Registration System (ORS). Opens Tanzania's Business Formation vertical (Tanzania's first schema in this registry, its 60th jurisdiction). This is a whole-of-form schema: Form 14a itself is a fixed-layout, non-repeating template (a single Applicant, a company-information block, a single Registered Office, a single free-text Business Activities block, exactly two numbered Director blocks, exactly one Company Secretary block, a single-row Authorised Share Capital table, and exactly two numbered Shareholder blocks), so no fields were descoped for repeating-group reasons. Every numbered person-block (both directors, both shareholders) is modeled as required, not optional, because the Companies Act itself — independently re-fetched this cycle from the same authority's own site — fixes these as legal minimums for every company, not just a form-printing convenience: section 186 ('Every company shall have at least two directors'), section 26/27 (a company whose membership falls below two members incurs personal liability for its officers after six months, and the Act's 'private company' definition contains no single-member carve-out), and section 187 ('Every company shall have a Secretary', mandatory for every company, not only public companies — confirmed still in force by the Written Laws (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 3) Act, 2021, which eased only the professional-qualification requirement for a private company's secretary, not the requirement to have one at all). Signature/seal/stamp blocks at the end of the form (Director ×2, Company Secretary) are a physical wet-signature/attestation mechanism, not data fields, and are out of scope, consistent with this registry's treatment of physical-signature-only blocks elsewhere. This schema does not submit anything to BRELA or imply Government of Tanzania endorsement.
Registry entry
tz/brela/company-registration-form-14a
Authoritative source Form 14a, "Application for Registration of a Company", pursuant to section 14(2) of the Companies Act, Cap. 212
Machine access
- Schema document
registry/tz/brela/company-registration-form-14a/1.0.0/schema.jsonapplication/schema+json- Verification record
registry/tz/brela/company-registration-form-14a/1.0.0/VERIFICATION.mdtext/markdown- Registry catalog
registry/index.jsonone record per schema id
Field reference
78 fields, read from the published schema.json, with names, types, requiredness, and validation as the document states them. The live government form remains the authoritative source.
Fields
-
trackingNumberstring optionalApplication-tracking reference. Reads as a BRELA Online Registration System (ORS)-assigned reference rather than an applicant-supplied value.
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applicationDatedate requiredApplication date
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applicantNationalIdstring requiredApplicant — National ID
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applicantNamestring requiredApplicant — Name
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applicantGenderstring requiredModeled as free text: the form prints only a blank dotted line, no enumerated option list.
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applicantDateOfBirthdate requiredApplicant — Date of birth
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applicantNationalitystring requiredApplicant — Nationality
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applicantEmailstring requiredApplicant — E-mail Address
pattern -
applicantMobilePhoneNumbersstring requiredApplicant — Mobile Phone Numbers
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applicantCanUpdateDataInOrsboolean requiredIf affirmative, this person is empowered to assign other persons who can update data in ORS, per the form's own explanatory note beneath this field.
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companyTinstring optionalTaxpayer Identification Number, where applicable — a new company may not yet have one at the time of filing.
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incorporationNumberstring optionalReads as a BRELA-assigned registration reference rather than an applicant-supplied value, since it logically cannot exist before this application is granted.
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companyNamestring requiredCompany name
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companyTypestring requiredModeled as free text: the form prints only a blank dotted line, no enumerated option list of the company types the Companies Act, Cap. 212 recognizes.
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incorporationDatedate optionalReads as a BRELA-assigned date rather than an applicant-supplied value, since it logically cannot exist before this application is granted.
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accountingDatestring requiredThe company's chosen financial year-end reference date (day and month, recurring annually).
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registeredOfficeAddressstring requiredRegistered office
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registeredOfficePoBoxstring requiredRegistered office — P.O. BOX
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registeredOfficeEmailstring requiredRegistered office — E-mail
pattern -
registeredOfficeMobilePhoneNumberstring requiredRegistered office — Mobile Phone Number
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businessActivitiesDescriptionstring requiredDescription of the company's business activities. The form itself gives 4 dotted lines of writing space for this single answer (1 labeled line plus 3 blank continuation lines).
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director1CanUpdateDataInOrsboolean requiredDirector 1 — Can this person update data in ORS?
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director1NationalIdOrPassportstring requiredDirector 1 — National ID/Passport No
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director1Tinstring optionalTaxpayer Identification Number, where applicable.
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director1Namestring requiredDirector 1 — Name
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director1Genderstring requiredDirector 1 — Gender
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director1DateOfBirthdate requiredDirector 1 — Date of birth
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director1Nationalitystring requiredDirector 1 — Nationality
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director1Emailstring requiredDirector 1 — E-mail Address
pattern -
director1MobilePhoneNumberstring requiredDirector 1 — Mobile Phone Number
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director1ResidentialAddressstring requiredDirector 1 — Residential address
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director2CanUpdateDataInOrsboolean requiredRequired, not optional: the Companies Act, Cap. 212 section 186 fixes a minimum of two directors for every company, matching the form's own fixed two-director layout.
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director2NationalIdOrPassportstring requiredDirector 2 — National ID/Passport No
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director2Tinstring optionalTaxpayer Identification Number, where applicable.
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director2Namestring requiredDirector 2 — Name
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director2Genderstring requiredDirector 2 — Gender
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director2DateOfBirthdate requiredDirector 2 — Date of birth
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director2Nationalitystring requiredDirector 2 — Nationality
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director2Emailstring requiredDirector 2 — E-mail Address
pattern -
director2MobilePhoneNumberstring requiredDirector 2 — Mobile Phone Number
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director2ResidentialAddressstring requiredDirector 2 — Residential address
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secretaryCanUpdateDataInOrsboolean requiredRequired, not optional: the Companies Act, Cap. 212 section 187 mandates a Secretary for every company (public or private), a requirement the Written Laws (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 3) Act, 2021 preserved, easing only a private-company secretary's professional-qualification requirement.
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secretaryNationalIdOrPassportstring requiredCompany Secretary — National ID/Passport No
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secretaryTinstring optionalTaxpayer Identification Number, where applicable.
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secretaryNamestring requiredCompany Secretary — Name
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secretaryGenderstring requiredCompany Secretary — Gender
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secretaryDateOfBirthdate requiredCompany Secretary — Date of birth
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secretaryNationalitystring requiredCompany Secretary — Nationality
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secretaryEmailstring requiredCompany Secretary — E-mail Address
pattern -
secretaryMobilePhoneNumberstring requiredCompany Secretary — Mobile Phone Number
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secretaryResidentialAddressstring requiredCompany Secretary — Residential address
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authorisedShareCapitalTypeOfSharesstring requiredAuthorised Share Capital — Type of Shares
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authorisedShareCapitalClassOfSharesstring requiredAuthorised Share Capital — Class of shares
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authorisedShareCapitalTotalNumberOfSharesinteger requiredAuthorised Share Capital — Total Number of shares
range: 1–∞ -
authorisedShareCapitalAggregateNominalValuenumber requiredDenominated in Tanzanian Shillings, per the table's own printed Currency column (fixed to 'TZS', not a fill-in cell).
range: 0–∞ -
authorisedShareCapitalTotalValueTzsnumber requiredThe table's own bottom 'Total' row, denominated in Tanzanian Shillings per its printed 'TZS' label.
range: 0–∞ -
shareholder1NationalIdOrPassportstring requiredShareholder 1 — National ID/Passport No
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shareholder1Namestring requiredShareholder 1 — Name
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shareholder1Genderstring requiredShareholder 1 — Gender
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shareholder1DateOfBirthdate requiredShareholder 1 — Date of birth
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shareholder1Nationalitystring requiredShareholder 1 — Nationality
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shareholder1Emailstring requiredShareholder 1 — E-mail Address
pattern -
shareholder1MobilePhoneNumberstring requiredShareholder 1 — Mobile Phone Number
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shareholder1ResidentialAddressstring requiredShareholder 1 — Residential address
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shareholder1TypeOfSharesTakenstring requiredShareholder 1 — Type of shares taken
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shareholder1ClassOfSharesstring requiredShareholder 1 — Class of shares
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shareholder1NumberOfSharesinteger requiredShareholder 1 — Number of shares
range: 1–∞ -
shareholder2NationalIdOrPassportstring requiredRequired, not optional: the Companies Act, Cap. 212 sections 26-27 treat two members as the ordinary minimum for a company (no single-member carve-out is defined in this Act), matching the form's own fixed two-shareholder layout.
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shareholder2Namestring requiredShareholder 2 — Name
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shareholder2Genderstring requiredShareholder 2 — Gender
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shareholder2DateOfBirthdate requiredShareholder 2 — Date of birth
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shareholder2Nationalitystring requiredShareholder 2 — Nationality
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shareholder2Emailstring requiredShareholder 2 — E-mail Address
pattern -
shareholder2MobilePhoneNumberstring requiredShareholder 2 — Mobile Phone Number
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shareholder2ResidentialAddressstring requiredShareholder 2 — Residential address
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shareholder2TypeOfSharesTakenstring requiredShareholder 2 — Type of shares taken
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shareholder2ClassOfSharesstring requiredShareholder 2 — Class of shares
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shareholder2NumberOfSharesinteger requiredShareholder 2 — Number of shares
range: 1–∞
Verification record
This file is the source-review record for this document version, per the manual-source-review-v1 practice.
Current claim
status:draftverification.method:manual-source-review-v1verification.lastVerifiedAt:2026-07-15
Why this schema and why now (GOV-3113)
GOV-3113 is a child issue of GOV-3109, itself delegated during the GOV-3104 "GovSchema Standard Research" cycle (Pakistan's FBR IT-1B, which opened Pakistan's Taxes vertical). GOV-3109's own scouting pass found this Tanzanian BRELA form — HTTP 200, no login/CAPTCHA gate, a genuine multi-page native text-layer PDF — as a strong, unauthored candidate, and delegated it as GOV-3113 rather than authoring it inline. This cycle re-derived everything from scratch rather than trusting that prior scouting note as-is, per this registry's standing convention.
Sources examined
- Document
(id, version):tz/brela/company-registration-form-14a/1.0.0 - Spec version: GovSchema
0.3.0 - Authority: Business Registrations and Licensing Agency ("BRELA").
- Primary source:
- Form file: https://www.brela.go.tz/uploads/documents/sw-1621406129-Form%2014a.pdf — fetched directly this cycle: HTTP 200, content-type
application/pdf, 263,198 bytes, sha256d0535d301c8764d40a4a0abec116f4c00e07d2ce544f489908788b7b1633fc35. - A genuine 3-page native text-layer PDF, confirmed via
pdfjs-dist'sgetTextContent()(not a scanned image);getAnnotations()returned zero widgets on all 3 pages — no/AcroForm, a fill-in-the-blank dotted-line template, not an interactive PDF form. - Every line of every page was extracted and read in full (line-grouped by
y-coordinate, then cross-checked against a rawx/yper-glyph dump). - The AUTHORISED SHARE CAPITAL table (page 2) required a further coordinate-level pass: a 2.5×-scale
node-canvasrender of page 2 was pixel-scanned for dark horizontal/vertical rule lines, locating 6 column boundaries atx = 1, 145, 295, 478, 710, 941, 1227px and 3 row boundaries. This confirmed the table's 2-line-wrapped header ("Type of / Shares", "Class of / shares", "Total Number of / shares", "Value", "Aggregate nominal / value", "Currency" with a fixed, already-printed "TZS" directly beneath it) sits over one blank data row and one further "Total" row (whose own label sits inside the 4th column'sx-range, with a second fixed "TZS" beneath the Currency column). Modeled as 5 fill-in fields (type of shares, class of shares, total number of shares, aggregate nominal value, total value) — the "Currency" cells are a printed constant (TZS), not applicant input, so no separate currency field was added. - The SHAREHOLDER 2 block (page 3) prints its field labels without the trailing dotted-blank glyphs every other block on the form has (e.g.
"National ID/Passport No:"with no……………after it, vs. Shareholder 1's"National ID/Passport No: ………………………………………………………………….on page 2). AWarning: TT: undefined function: 32surfaced frompdfjs-dist's font-glyph path generator while rendering that page — traced to character code 32 (space), not to any of the printed labels, ruling out silent text loss as the explanation. Treated as a pagination/layout artifact (the block ran out of vertical room for the dots, not a content difference): Shareholder 2's field set was cross-checked field-for-field against the identically-labeled Shareholder 1 block rather than relying on the missing dots. - Full-text grep of the extraction for
attach,enclos,copy of,certificate, anddocumentreturned zero matches — the form itself prints no enclosures/supporting-documents list anywhere in its 3 pages, unlike e.g. Pakistan's SECP Form-1.documents[]is therefore not modeled in this schema, rather than fabricating a generic placeholder entry.
- Form file: https://www.brela.go.tz/uploads/documents/sw-1621406129-Form%2014a.pdf — fetched directly this cycle: HTTP 200, content-type
- Corroborating source 1 — the Companies Act itself, Cap. 212 (also BRELA-hosted): https://www.brela.go.tz/uploads/documents/sw-1602521545-COMPANIES%20ACT%20(CAP.%20212).pdf — fetched directly this cycle: HTTP 200, sha256
9c75e2d0623454942a535e5cddd22898683da877c3f7cbfd5e9a81f1196ef0fd, 336 pages, extracted viapdfjs-distand grepped for cardinality rules. Found and read in full: These three sections together directly explain the form's own fixed layout — exactly two Director blocks, exactly two Shareholder blocks, and exactly one Company Secretary block — as statutory minimums, not merely a print-space convention. This reversed an initial UK/Kenya-style assumption (where private companies may have a single director/member and no mandatory secretary) that the second-occurrence blocks should be modeled optional.- Section 186: "Every company shall have at least two directors."
- Sections 26–27: a company whose membership falls below two members exposes its officers to personal liability for the company's debts after six months of continuing to trade below that threshold; the Act's own definition of "private company" (s.27) contains no single-member carve-out.
- Section 187: "Every company shall have a Secretary" — stated as a blanket requirement, not limited to public companies; s.187(2)'s extra qualification-standard language is specific to public company secretaries, not a carve-out from the base requirement.
- Corroborating source 2 — a 2021 amendment note: https://breakthroughattorneys.co.tz/amendment-to-the-companies-act-cap-212/ — fetched directly this cycle: HTTP 200. Describes the Written Laws (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 3) Act, 2021's changes to section 14(2) of the Companies Act — the exact section this form itself cites ("Pursuant to section 14(2) Companies Act Cap. 212") — adding National Identification Number, Taxpayer Identification Number ("where applicable"), email address, telephone, and passport (for foreigners) as required particulars. This matches the form's own field set closely and is the basis for modeling every TIN field (company, and each director's/secretary's own TIN) as
required: false: the amendment's own qualifier signals a TIN will not always exist at filing time. It also confirms the 2021 amendment preserved, not repealed, the mandatory Secretary requirement — it eased only a private company secretary's professional-qualification standard relative to a public company's.
Scope decisions
Form 14a is a fixed, non-repeating template — every block on it (Applicant, Company Information, Registered Office, Business Activities, both numbered Directors, the Company Secretary, the Authorised Share Capital table, and both numbered Shareholders) appears exactly once or exactly twice, printed directly on the form itself. No fields were descoped for repeating-group reasons (unlike, e.g., Nepal's OCR or Pakistan's SECP schemas), so this version models the whole form:
- Both Director blocks and both Shareholder blocks are modeled
required: true, not optional, per the Companies Act corroboration above (ss. 26–27, 186). The Company Secretary block is likewise modeledrequired: true, per s.187. - Every TIN field is
required: false("where applicable", per the 2021 amendment note corroborating source). trackingNumber,incorporationNumber, andincorporationDateare modeledrequired: false. Unlike every other blank on the form, these read as BRELA/ORS-system-assigned references rather than applicant input — an incorporation number/date logically cannot exist before the very registration this form applies for is granted.companyTypeand bothGenderfields are modeled as free-textstring, notenum— the form prints only a blank dotted line for each, with no accompanying option list, matching this registry's established practice of not fabricating enum values a source does not itself enumerate.businessActivitiesDescriptionis modeled as a single field, even though the form gives 4 dotted lines of writing space (1 labeled line plus 3 blank continuation lines) — this is continuation space for one free-text answer, not 4 distinct labeled fields.- The Authorised Share Capital table is modeled as 5 fields (type of shares, class of shares, total number of shares, aggregate nominal value, total value), reflecting the single blank data row the table's own printed structure provides (see coordinate analysis above). The table's "Currency" column, fixed to
TZSin both the header and the Total row, is documented in each amount field's own description rather than modeled as a separate currency field, since it is a printed constant, not applicant input. - The end-of-form Director/Company-Secretary signature, date, and seal-or-stamp lines are out of scope — a physical wet-signature/seal attestation mechanism, not data fields, consistent with this registry's treatment of physical-signature-only blocks elsewhere (e.g. Pakistan's SECP Form-1 witness-signature exclusion).
- No
documents[]is modeled — the form's 3 pages print no enclosures/attachments list and no "attach"/"copy of" instruction anywhere (confirmed by a full-text grep of the extraction), so nodocuments[]entry is fabricated.documentsis optional perspec/v0.3/govschema.schema.json's own top-levelrequired[]list, and several existing schemas in this registry omit it for the same reason.
Conformance fixtures (Phase 3)
6 fixtures committed under conformance/tz/brela/company-registration-form-14a/1.0.0/: 1 valid scenario (a private company with two directors — the second not empowered to update ORS data — a company secretary, and two shareholders splitting 100,000 authorised shares 60,000/40,000) plus 5 mutation-control fixtures, each derived from the valid fixture by a single targeted mutation. All 6 were run against a from-scratch, ephemeral field-by-field conformance checker (derived directly from this schema's own fields[]/required/ validation rules, not committed to the repo) before being finalized:
valid-two-director-two-shareholder-with-secretary.json— 0 errors.mutation-control-missing-required-field.json(dropscompanyName) — exactly 1 error.mutation-control-invalid-date-format.json(setsapplicantDateOfBirthto12/06/1985, not ISO 8601) — exactly 1 error.mutation-control-negative-share-count.json(setsshareholder1NumberOfSharesto-500, violatingminimum: 1) — exactly 1 error.mutation-control-invalid-email-pattern.json(setsdirector1Emailto"not-an-email") — exactly 1 error.mutation-control-missing-second-director-name.json(dropsdirector2Name, the statutory-minimum-grounded second director block) — exactly 1 error, confirming the second Director block is enforced as required, not optional.
An inaccuracy caught before committing
An early draft treated the second Director block, the second Shareholder block, and the Company Secretary block as required: false by default, reasoning from UK/Kenya-style Companies Act norms where a private company may have a single director/member and no mandatory secretary. Fetching and reading the Companies Act, Cap. 212 itself (the same BRELA-hosted primary source) directly contradicted this: s.186 fixes a minimum of two directors for every company, ss.26–27 treat two members as the ordinary minimum with no single-member carve-out, and s.187 mandates a Secretary for every company. All three blocks were corrected to required: true before this version was finalized.
Structural validation
node tools/validate.mjs registry/tz/brela/company-registration-form-14a/1.0.0/schema.json— ok.node tools/validate-ajv.mjs registry/tz/brela/company-registration-form-14a/1.0.0/schema.json(ajv 2020-12 againstspec/v0.3) — ok.- Full-registry re-run after adding this document:
node tools/validate.mjs→ 470/470 (up from 469/469 before this document);node tools/validate-ajv.mjs→ 470/470. node tools/verify-sources.mjs— clean (no FAIL/WARN on this document's changed files).npm run build-indexre-run intools/govschema-client/to regenerateregistry-index.jsonwith this document included.
Maturity
structural-reference: the source PDF's own printed structure is fully transcribed from the genuine, currently-served official statutory form (a fill-in-the-blank template, not an interactive form), corroborated against the Companies Act, Cap. 212 itself for cardinality, but no live filing through BRELA's Online Registration System (ORS) was attempted. GovSchema is an independent, non-profit standards body and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by the Government of Tanzania or BRELA.
View the raw record (VERIFICATION.md)
Version history
-
1.0.0draftlatestthis pagehas verification recordschema.json
Independent and non-affiliated
GovSchema is an independent, open-source project. This reference is not produced, reviewed, or endorsed by Business Registrations and Licensing Agency or any government. The authoritative source is always the live government form and its official instructions.